In the emotionally, guilt ridden energy of addiction in the family, as parents, we assign a great deal of responsibilities to our behaviors and our decisions:
- To do the right thing
- To not mess this up
- To get this under control
- To fix this
- To make sure no one finds out
Wow! That is a lot of responsibility, especially since much of what we are dealing with – our child’s choices in active addiction – are way beyond our control.
Take a moment and closely examine what is behind these priorities – fear:
- Fear of not making the right decision
- Fear of making a mistake
- Fear that we might have somehow caused this
- Fear of this getting worse and having permanent damage
- Fear of being judged as having been a bad parent
Again, wow! What a scary, difficult place to operate from. I lived there for nearly two-years. I get it. I have experience with the crippling effect fear has on our minds and how it can and does corrupt our decision making.
Decisions made from a place of fear are often emotional reactions to complicated situations which rarely lead to the outcomes we desire as logic and reason have been minimized by the fear’s intense presence.
Over the past several months, the central theme around these blogs have been to help shift our focus away from fear and more toward love; after all, pure love is the exact opposite of fear. Accomplishing this involves an awareness of two aspects in our perspectives which get in our way of trusting our love instead of embracing our fears:
- Be the parent our children need us to be, not the parent we think we need to be:
When I first started dealing with my son’s addiction related issues, I made all the decisions. I reacted to the immediate problem and did exactly what I thought and believed needed to be done. I was committed to the notion that recovery was the highest priority and I couldn’t get my son into recovery fast enough. I was doing all the things I thought I needed to do to be the parent I believed I needed to be. My motivation came from a place of love, but my real concern was driven by my fears this could get worse and by my underlying guilt that somehow, I might have failed my son.
Having the benefit of hindsight and experience, I realized this could have been managed differently. Instead of focusing on what I thought I needed to do, I could have taken my time to learn. There is a whole level of information which was missing from my decision- making process, all of which involved learning about what was actually going on in my son’s world from his eyes, his experiences, his struggles, and his wants/needs. I took none of those things into consideration. Instead of being the dad my son needed me to be, helping provide him what he needed most, I chose to be the dad I needed to be and determined what I most needed to do. These are entirely different responses and behaviors.
- It is about them and their struggle, not about us and our issues:
When stuff goes wrong with our children, we don’t realize it, but, we make it about us. It usually begins with a “How can I…?” and then results in us stepping in and taking over. The problems and struggles our children are dealing with are not about us, it is about them. It is their struggle. Addiction and recovery are no different. They don’t need you to fix it, they need you to understand it. They don’t need you to manage it, they need you to let them figure it out. Guidance and help is a solicited activity.
The best response to have with a child’s struggles is to make certain we are focused on them – where they are, what they are struggling with, why they are struggling, and what they need from us (if anything). Without this information, which can only be gathered from having an open, interactive conversation with them, we are doing what we think we need to do and are making the outcome all about us and our objectives for success.
Break the habit of being the parent we think we need to be and make our children’s issues all about us, as though they are our problem, pause, step back, take a break. And, engage in one simple activity – LISTEN.
Not just listening to hear, but to learn, to understand, to know. To learn what your child is going through. To understand how they feel, discover what their deepest struggles are, and why. To know from them what gets in their way, how that impacts them and, if they choose to share, what they are looking for from us.
Add selflessness to your listening behaviors to create an even more powerful dynamic. Selfless listening – selfless because it requires you to be committed to listening without an agenda, without fear, without interruption or opinions, without minimizing or dismissing the struggle, and without any judgement, criticism, or condemnation.
How many times has your child said, “you just don’t understand, or you just don’t get it.” This is their cry for help, it’s a call to action. They are saying, “you don’t listen to me enough to truly know where I am, how I feel, what I am struggling with, or what I need from you to help me. Please let me share this with you and don’t freak out.”
Next time you feel the urge to react, to share your agenda, to project your frustrations, pause. Ask yourself, what do I need to know about them, about where they are, and what they are struggling with? Encourage them to share as you listen selflessly. See where that takes you.
We will be spending much more time, on this subject over the next few weeks. I would love it if you would email (dave@100Pedals.com) your thoughts and questions about listening. This is the most important and fundamental lesson for parents to connect with our children and their life struggles and challenges. Together we can collaborate to build a powerful “community that listens” through this process.
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“Inside the Blog” podcast current episode: http://theaddictionconversation.libsyn.com/navigating-your-way-free-from-someone-elses-chaos
I would love to hear from you.
What issues are confronting you today? Where are you currently experiencing fear and shame relating to the struggles in your life? I have some pretty cool tools to guide you and would love to help. Please let me know if you need more: dave@100Pedals.com.
